PHILADELPHIA – Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), which afflicts more than 26 million Americans, is a condition in which individuals experience a slow loss of kidney function over time. At the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2015, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will present findings from their analysis of the Chronic Renal Insufficiently Cohort (CRIC) study to evaluate risk markers for adverse cardiac events in patients with CKD.

Researchers examined data from the CRIC study to determine how the epidemiology of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in patients with CKD differs according to patient's age and gender. Data revealed that the risk of PAD is higher in women as compared to men. Results also showed that while age affected the risk of PAD in men more directly, the risk in women was consistent from year to year, and it began earlier in life. But by the time both men and women reached their 70s, the rate of risk was relatively similar.

"We set out to determine whether there were gender differences in peripheral artery disease in patients with CKD, and found that women had an increased risk compared to men; however, this relationship was modified by age," said the study's lead author, Grace Wang, MD, an assistant professor of Surgery and Radiology, and director of the Vascular Laboratory at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "The analysis showed that women were more at risk for PAD early on, starting around age 40, but the risk in men became greater as they aged."

Results showed that the risk of PAD in women was 1.5 times higher than the risk in men, prior to age 70. Overall, women with CKD have a higher PAD incidence at nearly 23 percent, as compared to an almost 14 percent in men. Researchers also noted that additional studies should be conducted to understand the impact of earlier detection of PAD in women, as a means for preventing or proactively treating peripheral artery disease.

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Funding for the Sex Differences in the Incidence of Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study was supported in part by the University of Pennsylvania Clinical and Translational Science Award NIH/NCATS UL1TR000003; Johns Hopkins University UL1 TR-000424; University of Maryland GCRC M01 RR-16500; Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland UL1TR000439; Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research UL1TR000433; University of Illinois at Chicago CTSA UL1RR029879; Tulane University Translational Research in Hypertension and Renal Biology P30GM103337; and Kaiser Permanente NIH/NCRR UCSF-CTSI UL1 RR-024131.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania(founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $5.3 billion enterprise.

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